Managing Change Requests Using Lean Methods and a Kanban Board

One Month after Implementation

In the first month after implementation, the SM group saw the backlog shrink from over 100 features to less than 60. Cycle times decreased to around one month and one week. So far, Jake's discussions with the stakeholders have found them cautiously optimistic about this new approach.

Jake set up a retrospective for one month after the initial implementation of the Kanban system in SM. In the retrospective, the team came up with some new ways to improve the Kanban. The team had used Kanban to give them visibility into their process to help eliminate waste. The waste found included change requirements that were not necessary. Jake thought the next step the group needed to take would be to continue eliminating waste. More importantly, the group would need to improve their ability to add business value. Jake felt they could achieve this in the next six months.

(The next installment looks at how Jake and his group use the Kanban process to add value to their company).

Eric Landes is a Project Manager/Project Lead for a large corporate IT department, specializing in developing custom SharePoint applications. He has two years' experience using Agile techniques in developing enterprise applications. See his linked in profile for more information